Part 10

"But the son is very nice; didn't you think so?" asked May, seized, in her turn, with the spirit of investigation. "He didn't even seem conceited, which clever people usually are."

"Yes, indeed! he is very nice; how did you like him, Uncle Dan?"

"Geof?" Uncle Dan repeated, rather absently; "How did I like Geof? Oh, I should say he was turning out very well. But I thought you girls had the best of it"; whence it may be gathered that Mrs. Daymond had not only borrowed the two girls, but had offered her son as compensation to the Colonel.

"How pretty the two gondolas will look going about together when we get our new flags," said May. "It will be a regular little flotilla."

"Aren't you expecting a good deal of Mrs. Daymond?" Pauline demurred.

"Why of course we shall go about together. She said she hoped to see a great deal of us while we were here."

The Colonel emptied his claret-glass, while a sense of warmth and well-being stole through his veins, that made him think he must have been mistaken about that ice.

"Are you going to fly the Stars and Stripes?" he asked. He had never considered the prow of a gondola a very fitting situation for the flag he had fought for,--but perhaps the Pollys knew best.

"No, indeed," said May. "We are going to have something ever so much prettier than that."

"Ah, Polly! There's nothing prettier than the Stars and Stripes," the Colonel protested.

"May means more original," said Pauline. "She has had one of her happy thoughts."

"You see, Uncle Dan," May explained, "there are such a lot of national flags on the gondolas, and it seems so stupid not to have something different. So Mr. Daymond and I have concocted quite a new scheme,--or rather the idea was mine and he is going to paint them. We are going to have a sea-horse painted on red bunting, in tawny colors, golds and browns; and Mr. Daymond thinks he shall make one for their gondola on a dark blue ground. Shan't you feel proud to sail the Venetian lagoons with a sea-horse at the mast-head?"

"Proud as a peacock! And the young man is going to paint it for you?"

"Yes; isn't that good of him? And shan't we look pretty?"

"Never saw the time you didn't," Uncle Dan was tempted to say. But he flattered himself that he never spoiled his nieces, and so he remarked instead, with his most crafty grimace: "No, you'll probably look like frights"; which, if the girls had not been quite case-hardened against his thinly disguised compliments, might have had just the disastrous effect he wished to avoid.

Truth to tell, they were neither of them very susceptible to flattery, for neither of them was in the least self-centred. Even May, who was far from sharing her sister's mellow warmth of interest in other people,--even May, with all the crudities and shortcomings of youth still in the ascendant, was too much occupied with her rapidly acquired views of the phenomena about her, to pay much attention to the perhaps equally interesting phenomenon of her own personality. The impression left upon the two girls by their half hour's talk with Geoffry Daymond was characteristic of each. May approved of him because he had been interested in her ideas; and Pauline liked him because he had been interested in her sister.

Whatever the young man's impressions may have been, it may as well be stated at once, that in the course of that tea-drinking he made up his mind that his mother really had a right to expect him to stay with her for the next week or two, and that he should tell Oliver Kenwick to-morrow, that he would have to get somebody else for that tramp through the Titian country. What did he care about the Titian country anyway? Here was Titian himself here in Venice, and lots besides. He would pitch into those flags to-morrow. That was really a very happy thought of the talkative one. He wondered if the quiet one would say more if she got a chance; she did not look stupid. And that reflection had struck him as so preposterous, that he had almost interrupted her sister in her expression of opinion on the subject of the famous bronze chargers that seem always on the point of plunging down from the front of San Marco into the Piazza, to the destruction of the babies and pigeons there assembled, to ask: "Miss Beverly what do you like best in Venice?"

"The gondola," said Pauline, after an instant's reflection--a little pause which proved to be one of her idiosyncrasies.

"The gondola?" he repeated, doubtfully. "The gondola isn't very much by itself."

"But the gondola never is by itself. It's the centre of everything. It's all Venice and a living creature besides--something like a person's heart. Of course I don't mean the gondolas on the souvenir spoons!" she added, with the little ripple, that was so much prettier than a definite smile. Decidedly, Miss Beverly was not stupid.

"You row, of course?" May had considered her question to be quite in line with the conversation. "Is it very difficult?"

"Not after you get the knack. That is, the forward oar gets going after a while. I rather think you would have to begin almost in long clothes as these gondoliers do to get anything like their skill in really handling the boat."

And now, in reply to Uncle Dan's artful substitute for a compliment, one of the prospective frights remarked: "Mr. Daymond says they have a lighter oar that he used to row with when he was a boy. He is going to get it out for us to-morrow, and then we must all learn to row."

"I think I should prefer to learn by observation," Uncle Dan demurred, as he pulled his stiff leg out from under the table. Upon which, dinner being over, the girls went off in search of their wraps, while the Colonel stepped out between the glass doors, and strolled down to the bottom of the garden, where the water lapped the stone parapet.

The dusk had gathered and the stars were coming out. The water was dotted with gondola-lights that twinkled here and there, like detached will-o'-the wisps, the black hulls of the boats not being clearly distinguishable in the shadow. Every gondola was out, excepting the few unlucky ones that were detained for ferry service; for there was to be a festa this evening, and the forestieri,--by which pretty woodsy name the tourist is designated in the most poetic of tongues,--could be counted upon to pay fancy prices.

The Colonel, secure in his possession of Vittorio, took no part in the bargaining that was going on at the hotel steps, a few yards away, and all along the line of the garden wall. He was standing beside the iron railing, pulling at a contemplative cigar, and listening, with considerable relish, to the wrangling of the gondoliers, when he heard a voice just under the wall, saying: "Buona sera, Signore! It's Nanni."

The Colonel had not observed that one of the shadowy barks had glided close in under the wall at his feet.

"Why, Nanni!" he exclaimed; and reaching down over the railing he clasped a strong brown hand.